Each year Consumer Union's The Consumerist site doles out a dubious distinction to one dastardly corporation -- the title of "Worst Company In America". Last year pro-digital rights management Electronic Arts, Inc. (EA) beat out bailout whipping-boy Bank of America Corp. (BAC) for the crown.

This year BAC and EA emerged yet again as the top two contenders from a field of 30 gleaming prospects. But when the smoke cleared it was EA who once more received the most votes, via a healthy 78 percent margin.

Perhaps the single defining moment that allowed EA to bring home the gold was its SimCity 5 DRM debacle, which saw thousands of gamers unable to play a game they paid for due to EA's lack of server support for its DRM-scheme. Aside from the SimCity mess, many take issue with declining quality in titles from the top gamemaker, which saw its financials slide this last year.

In a recent blog company COO Peter Moore acknowledged that his company was in contention for a second win, but looked to shift the blame, claiming it was a homophobic conspiracy that was driving votes. He points to players ability to create cross-dressing/transgendered characters in certain titles and gay relationships in other titles as leading to a boycott. Mr. Moore failed, however, to cite any specific examples of these posts and we were unable to locate any at the time of publication.

EA COO blames homophobes for his company's "worst" win, not his firm's own DRM missteps.

Last year EA released an official statement to Kotaku after the award was handed out. We'll see how they respond this time around.

It's a matter of numbers. While companies like BofA may screw 20,000 people over for thousands of dollars, EA screws over millions and millions of people. Also, since gamers are typically more technically minded when it comes to PC's and the internet, the mom & pop users getting screwed by BofA may not know about the poll or know how to get to it if they did know about it. Even if all people knew about the poll and could easily vote, the BofA customers would still likely be in the minority.

Also, like the point the Consumerist article brings up, EA won in SPITE of all the other sleazy companies out there. What does that really say about the perception of EA with the mass of consumers?

As to Moore's comments... While there may not have been any documented voting bias from the LGBT (is that correct?) community this year, I bet there will be next year!